The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
by Smoltenica
Summary: Click to read more about the Most Beautiful Girl In the World. Heavy Princess Bride references, and a parody of Disney- particularly Sleeping Beauty.
1. The Princess

**Author's Note: **Ok, so I know I said that this was just a Disney parody but there are other literary references... if you can find them, you're entitled to a free Something! Also, if I have managed to offend anybody, my deepest apologies. And of course, no profit is being made from this fic, and I don't actually own all that much of this fic. Anyhoo... I present you with...

**THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD**

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a princess. This princess lived with her mother The Queen (she had no name, she was merely 'The Queen') and her father King Cecil. (He was the richest and most powerful man in the world.)

All was well, apart from the fact that the King was fond of a good meal, and the Queen had a weakness for pretty clothes, blackbird pies, and lavish names, and so consequently, the court was forever in deficit. But we digress.

This princess was so beautiful that even the vainest peacocks, upon seeing her, would drop their feathers and respectfully scowl. She was called Julietta Rebekah Leonora Aldith Charlotta Louisetta Regina, but everyone in the court called her Princess Red Snow, for her hair was red, her cheeks were rosy and her lips were red, but her skin was white.

A year after her birth, the King and Queen held a lavish party. They had golden placemats for all the guests, and the party went on for days. On the seventh day, the King called on the miracle workers and faeries of the land to bless his daughter.

"My people!" he boomed. "For twenty years this country has had naught but peace, for the blessings of the miracle workers and faeries have prevailed. One year and one week ago, my daughter, Julietta Rebekah Leonora Aldith Charlotta Louisetta Regina, aka Red Snow, was born, and when I die, and when she has married, she shall rule this kingdom! Bless her with all gifts desirable-" here the King turned red and mumbled something about money management skills- "bless her as befits her blood and her name!"

One by one, the faeries and miracle workers placed blessings and charms on her such as beauty, wit, a voice of a nightingale and money management skills, so that the princess had all the worldly perfections imaginable. As the last faerie began her blessing, a gust of wind blew through the castle. The guests sat stiff in their chairs. The faeries shrieked- for riding through a castle window was The Wicked Witch of the North!

The Wicked Witch of the North had once been a faerie, and had worked for the king, blessing him with the promise of a beautiful daughter on his ascension to the throne. Thereupon, she had migrated to the Land of Oz, and had stayed there under the promise that when the time came, when this child reached her first birthday, she would be called to take her and instruct her. The King, however, had had no intentions of calling back the faerie to his court, and so instead had sent a letter informing her that she was to, by no means, meet his daughter. She had been a trouble maker, and had terrified his wife into kissing a pig to avoid having her hair cursed to become a cabbage leaf for a day. Now, when he saw her, his face was like a thundercloud.

"Jezebel Jocasta Jennings!" he roared, standing up, but the witch ignored him. She landed beside the princess and pulled a scraggly wand from her tattered robes, and recited in a voice that made the guests shriek for fear as their blood ran cold-

"_I tell the truth_

_Even as your father lied-_

_At sixteen by the bite of an apple_

_You will have died."_

The witch looked triumphantly at the king and cackled.

"You fell fool to one of the classic blunders!" she cried. "The most famous of them is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia', but only _slightly _less well known is this- never go in against the Wicked Witch of the North, when a certain Princess Julietta Rebekah Leonora Aldith Charlotta Louisetta Regina's life is on the line!"

With that she leapt up onto her broom and flew away, far away, returning to the Land of Oz.

Soon after, the last Good Faerie regained her wits and tapped her wand to the princess' forehead.

"I cannot undo the witch's spell," she squeaked, "but I can help." And without further ado, she said, "The Princess shall not die, but merely fall into a hundred year sleep."

The party guests disappeared soon afterwards. The King and Queen tried to be merry, but a cloud hung over the castle for many days, and a new law was decreed- apples were illegal. (Anybody in possession of an apple or tree was made to burn it and pay a tax of $70 000. The King was very clever at these sorts of things, even in a crisis, but as a rule, that money was spent on food or clothes, and not for filling up the treasury.)

_Please R&R... I was silly enough to not ask for that on my other fics, but please do! Like it, hate it, the review button was put there for more reasons than aesthetic purposes- in my opinion._


	2. The Ancient One

Fifteen years had passed since the princess' unfortunate birthday. The Princess was, at that stage, not the world's most beautiful woman, but she was very close up there. She stood at rank twelve, but when she laughed as she looked out her window, her rank rose, for the laugh had made her all the more beautiful. She then stood as the world's seventh most beautiful woman in the world.

It was a warm and sunny day that the King and Queen had gone to one of their houses for pleasure, and the young Princess happened to divert herself by running down to the woods near the castle with her nursemaid, for she had seen some funny looking stumpy men marching down, carrying axes.

"They look like mythical creatures I read in my fairy book!" she whispered to her nurse, Nurse, who smiled and said, in a motherly, condescending tone,

"They were pixies, my dear, pixies."

"Leprechauns," Princess Red Snow corrected her. "Is the old legend true, Nanny? Were I to chase a rainbow and find gold at the foot of the rainbow, would it be that the leprechauns had left it there?"

"You wouldn't need it, my dear," said Nurse, patting her arm. "Our castle may be in deficit, but we have power, and money is nothing to power. Come back to the castle."

"But I have never been more than thirty steps from home!" cried Princess Red Snow, almost indignantly, and 'twas a sweet, perfect indignant voice with which she cried. "I'm sixteen- in other countries I could move out of the castle! We are but nine and twenty steps from the castle gate- may we not venture further?"

The Good Nurse looked at her charge and sighed. Whenever the Princess looked at her with those pleading eyes, she could never resist. "Yes, dear," she said.

Princess Red Snow smiled her slow, blossoming smile, and daintily took a step nearer the stumpy men.

"This is it," she murmured, and her cheeks glowed like the setting sun, a light in her eyes.

"This is what?" Nurse asked her.

"If I take one more step- I'll be farther from home than I have ever been before."

Nurse slipped her arm around the Princess' shoulders.

"You wanted to come," she reminded her gently, and the Princess smiled once more, and continued the walk. After all, had she not wished to pursue the leprechauns?

Upon closer inspection, the Princess laughed even as something pierced her heart. Leprechauns, indeed!

"Why," she laughed to a bird nearby, "they're nothing more than dwarves!"

One of the dwarves gave her a sour look, and she bit her lip and looked back to the castle.

"Come, my child, we should head back up," her nursemaid whispered to her, "we have ventured far enough today"- but she merely laughed.

"Nanny, come a little further," she begged, and her nursemaid acquiesced, though she had a very bad feeling about it.

Suddenly, an old woman hobbled from out of the bushes. The stumpy men saw her, the blood draining from their faces, and they scurried under the ground. But the old woman had no concern for them. She turned and saw the Princess, and grinned- a wicked, toothless grin. Nurse gasped and grasped the Princess' arm. The Princess screamed. (And a pretty near perfect scream it was, too.)

She was Ancient, with warts and moles of all sorts over her seemingly bloodless face. Her hair was straggly, and she smelt strongly of sulphur.

"Old woman!" squealed the nursemaid, when her voice returned to her. "Feel free to flee!" But she felt not half as brave as she sounded, and the Ancient Woman paid her no attention. Instead, she looked at the Princess.

"Is this the Princess?" she crooned, grinning evilly. "The one they call 'Red Snow'?"

The Princess nodded, frozen.

"I have a present for you, my dear. Don't be scared!" With that, she whipped out a beautiful, large, shiny apple, handed it to the Princess, and hobbled away.

It was a luscious fruit, and the Princess felt as if there was a magnetic pull as the apple came closer, and closer to her mouth-

"Don't eat it!" squealed the nursemaid, but it was too late- the princess had already taken a bite- and whereby chance, poison, or the curse of the Wicked Witch of the North, Julietta Rebekah Leonora Aldith Charlotta Louisetta Regina had swooned and fallen.

The old woman gave a wild laugh, and returned to the Land of Oz, where she would later end up being melted by a bucket of water. (She was, as you have probably guessed by now, the Wicked Witch of the East.)

Nurse called for help, and carried the Princess up to the castle. The Queen took to hysterics, and had to be fed a blackbird pie laced with sedatives. The King took over and ordered his daughter to be carried to the highest room in the tallest tower, to be dressed in her finest clothes, and laid upon a bed embroidered with silver and gold.

"After all, that old witch will pay for what she's done," he mumbled. (Kings never speak quite so royally as we fancy, at least not in private.)

Princess Julietta Rebekah Leonora Aldith Charlotta Louisetta Regina looked not a bit less beautiful for her swooning- indeed, her enchanted sleep had made her more beautiful, so that her rank of being seventh most beautiful woman in the world shot up immediately to number one. The King commanded that they should not disturb her, but let her sleep quietly till her hour of awakening was to come.

The Good Faerie who had cast this enchantment of drowsiness quickly spirited the tower away in the dead of night, where it stood, amidst a forest, for years under the misty moonbeams that wafted through the window onto the sleeping princess.


	3. The Prince

A hundred years passed. A prince- the world's most handsome prince- was hunting in a foreign country- for he was the world's best hunter- when he saw a tower in the middle of a great, thick wood, and stopped to ask what it was. Each person he asked had a different story- some said it was a ruinous old castle, haunted by spirits, others that it was where all sorcerers and witches met by night, but another countryman spoke to him, saying, "Your Royal Highness, it is fifty years since I heard this story from my father, who heard it from his father- there is a princess, sleeping there, and awaits the kiss of a prince to wake her. Tis said she was the most beautiful woman in the world, Sire."

The Prince was chivalrous and noble and believed that he could put an end to this rare adventure. He had already fallen in love with the Princess, although he had not seen her. He had barely advanced into the wood when all the trees gave way to let him pass through- he walked up to the castle, and he did not wonder that none followed him, for, blessed by his marvellous intellect, he knew that magic played a part in all this, and he did not cease from continuing his way, for a young and amorous prince is always valiant.

He was met by a maze of winding staircases and halls, but seemed to know each turn to make- he walked on, up the spiralling stairs- till he had reached the highest room in the tallest tower. Then he grasped his heart, took a breath, pushed open the door, and stepped in to meet his fate.

A four poster bed with hangings of velvet, embroidered with gold and silver lay by the window. The Prince felt a wave of love for the Princess, and closed his eyes, pushed the hangings away, leant over to kiss her, opened his eyes-

- and screamed and fainted.

For, alas, the fairy had foolishly forgotten to stop time with her spell, and the Princess had aged! She was no longer the most beautiful woman in the world- her rank was somewhere in the four hundred and fifties, and she looked as though she had spent four and twenty years pickling in the Dead Marshes!

Traumatised, the Prince came to himself and fled from the tower.

"I will never love again," he said. He returned to his castle, learned the art of diplomacy, and ruled many years in prosperity and wealth, but never did he marry, and never again did he harbour any chivalrous thoughts.


End file.
